Posts by Scott A
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Speaking of which, did I really hear that someone in Parliament asked John Key why New Zealand's mine standards weren't up to Australian standards, such as including oxygen supplies?
I might've heard the story mis-reported, but that's a shocking case of political opportunism gone bad from however asked the question. Because New Zealand's and Australia's safety standards are mostly identical and oxygen supplies are not used in either of them. Because, um, oxygen is just a wee bit flammable...
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Heh, "gelded the tomcat out of him?" Clearly not, as this story shows gelded toms fight just as much as any other cat, just over different things.
I recognise this story; when I moved house a few years back into a very cat-ridden cul-de-sac it was a tough first year for my big burly dog-like gelded boy; he was moving into an area dominated by a big black tomcat as well as lots of other cats competing for space.
Quite a few scrapes and expensive vet bills occured, but now he's become the big black dominant cat in the neighbour; which seems to have reduced the number of fights overall down this way. After all, a gelded tom still fights, just over different things...
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Everyone hates logos...
...but I like that one. Simple, striking, easily replicated. Given time it'll build the necessary mental association with the city.
And it doesn't have that appearance of being designed to be 'modern' and 'dynamic,' and that instantly sets it apart.
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I'm betting the Storm didn't run those payments through it's normal salary books and tax wouldn't have been withheld from it as it was paid to the players.
The ATO loves getting high-profile people on the ropes; I hope the players getting the marquee money are getting in touch with their accountants for the oncoming audit 'storm'.
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Andrew Paul Wood said:
Would someone please explain to me why the fuck Weta is doing this and not an artist? Why is Weta taking bread out of the mouths of New Zealand’s sculptors with this unimaginative pseudo-Fascist tat? Sadly it appears that art in this country is getting assimilated into entertainment, which means New Zealand audiences and patrons are going to have some very strange expectations of our artists. I would rather see the most hackneyed Neil Dawson (a giant lacework rugby ball probably) than this uninspired piece of Hitleresque nonsense.
See, this annoys me, probably as much as Weta doing this sculpture annoys Mr Wood. He seems to have a built in assumption that getting a job that pays you to use your skills means you are no longer an artist.
I'm sure this likely offends many of the very talented visual artists who work at Weta.
I do hope Mr Wood realises that while starving in a garret may have created some great works of art it is not, in itself, a necessary condition for being an artist.
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I thought this Supercity thing was supposed to do away with all this "disaster" malarkey.
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Although my rough guess is that most people would pay about the same total individual tax under that model, just in slightly cleaner, more transparent ways and it would remove weird property and trust distortions
One hopes that'd be the point; and if this - or any - government achieves that I'll be moderately happy. Once the picture is cleaner in a "revenue neutral" manner then politics about tax cuts / tax brackets / tax credits will both make more sense and be more debated more sensibly. One hopes...
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I know the detail is still to come, but I'm still disappointed about no announcement being made about one of the most distortion-creating elements of rental property investment; a key area created by oversight by Labour that makes it a very tax-attractive option for people with children.
Currently, unless you "are in the business of providing rental properties" any loses you make from your rental investment (including, of course, book losses from the depreciation on an appreciating asset) can be offset against other income to increase your Working for Families entitlement. For everyone else involved in business-type activities their business loss is ring-fenced from the WFF entitlement. Similarly people whose rental properties are held in an LAQC also can't use that loss to increase their WFF.
And, short of an investigation and debate about level of activity, IRD seems to generally accept a landlord's accountant's view of if their activity is a business or not. And given the amount of Family Support and In-Work Tax Credit you can get for working for a wage a number of hours a week while substantially supporting yourself with rental income this creates a big disparity between rental investors and the guy running the dairy down the road.
That gap creates a large transfer of tax credits back to people whose actual living income is higher than their entitlement is assessed on. Such a simple thing to fix, too. But will they do so, or will they be happy just to remove the ability to depreciate the property?
And, if the later is their track, they better put something in the law too to explicitly prevent people depreciating individual assets as fixtures and fittings rather than the property at a whole. IRD currently views that practice as "possible tax avoidance" but the law likely needs to be formalised in some manner.
Oh, and another thing I want to point out to the "we're business people like any other" rental investment lobby; until I see you paying ACC levies on that (including a minimal rate even if you lost money) like all other "business" then I think I don't believe you.
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I went to the first three 7s in Wellington, and saw how quickly over those few years it stopped being "rugby with a bit of fun" to "fun with a bit of rugby." I haven't been since that third one, when I realised I was spending often the best weekend of summer in an uncomfortable concrete stadium with 35,000 drunk people I didn't really like all that much. (But that's just me, not my sorta fun).
Now I tend to avoid town over the weekend, but I really really don't want to see Wellington lose it. We party so well, we generally cope so well, and for those in the appropiate mindset it's a great thing. Like Toast Martinborough isn't really about the wine the 7s isn't really about the rugby and it's actually become all the better for it.
Unfortunately the possibility that it might move away from Wellington is really inspiring those people to start complaining, to start campaigning. You know, those people, the sort to move into the centre of the city then complain about the Friday night noise or the vomit on their doorstep on 7s weekend, who get all uppity about people who come to 'their neighbourhood' to have fun, when they made a choice to live on Cuba Street because it's so convienient.
Though the 7s no longer interest me; I really don't want to see those people stop the fun most of the city has over the weekend. Lighten up, and if you want quiet move out to the suburbs. Kingston's lovely this time of year!
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Which could illustrate an entire country that needed to follow rule 3 about that guys rule 34...
ahem. Anyway, hope anyone who is going to Pixies has a great time; wish I'd got my a into g to head up the Island to the show.
Which caused me to remember that it's quite possible my first experience of Pixies was seeing the author of this blog playing a cover of Velouria in a garage in Upper Hutt...
...which brings us back to AC/DC I guess!